jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Ideally the latter, so I have more time to focus on actually making the things. And other devices, many of which you would find equally useful. I would like to point out that the application I'm thinking of is installing fixed lights in a building, not necessarily making more portable lights. That's going to be easier to scale up because I don't think lithium is for sale around here, and lithium is a critical component of any reasonably efficient power-storage device."

[alicornucopia]

"I can't understand your jargon," says the moneylender.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It's much easier and cheaper to put lights in roofs and walls and run wires to them, than to make more that can be carried around. I predict that most of my business will be installing them in buildings and powering and maintaining them after that."

[alicornucopia]

"I assume the sister isn't going to follow you around helping you with your Cirth forever; are you going to hire help?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Another device that would take a while to explain is teaching me Cirth. Within a few days I will be reasonably fluent."

[alicornucopia]

"The question stands."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'll hire help if and when I find that I need it."

[alicornucopia]

"But you don't currently plan to?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I do expect to hire help eventually, but not for a couple of weeks when I have some finished products to present to people. Sorry, I'm not trying to dance around the question, I'm trying to be clear and failing at it."

[alicornucopia]

"Hmmm." The moneylender steeples her fingers. "How much did you say you wanted?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Two months' wage to produce a proof-of-concept. If you're impressed with the viability of that, perhaps four times more again to fund an initial spurt of production and sales. You know people are going to want this, candles are terrible compared to what I can produce. And once electric light takes off, I can make machines that produce ice whenever you want, powered by the same source. And half a dozen other things besides."

[alicornucopia]

"Whose wage, though?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"A dockworker's or farmer's or some other low-skill thing. I literally arrived here this morning, Kaja rescued me from a lich, I don't even know what the currency is called but I know I can make it work."

[alicornucopia]

"All right. I'll give you fifteen gold - in mostly silver so people will make change - at fifteen percent annually to be collected in six months unless you can repay sooner. Or, I'll give you thirty at twelve, if you hire my grandson, who I know will not steal from you and who can make sure you don't do anything obviously stupid."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'm thinking the latter, if he won't want a ridiculous excessive wage. I'll need some copper to use as raw material, if you use copper. And how will the twelve percent annually be compounded? For that matter, this country uses twelve months in a year, correct? Some places don't."

[alicornucopia]

"Twelve months in a year, yes," blinks the moneychanger, "I can give you some of the money in copper -" And then she goes over the compounding math with him.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick is either very good at math, or using a device.

"Sounds good. Where is the contract?"

[alicornucopia]

"I'll fill one in... I'm satisfied with the paladin's witness if you are."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Yes, same here."

[alicornucopia]

So they sign things and Kaja watches them sign things and the moneylender gives him a sack of coins and her grandson's address.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He asks Kaja, "Are you terribly bored? Ideally I could talk to her grandson with you to translate if I run into difficulty, but if you need to return to your compound I will make do."

[segreant]

"I don't need to be back until around suppertime, if you still need me, but you didn't seem to require much translation."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I think I'll be alright. I might mess up idioms and turns-of-phrase, but I have the basics. Thank you for your help."

[segreant]

"You're welcome."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Oh, I almost forgot, you were going to test a piece of my armor! Let's do that before I forget again."